Sorry about not posting pictures yet. I tried to post a couple last time but they didn’t go through and I didn’t have time to mess around with it.

We had some time to kill the other day before our boat ride, so we walked around Paihia for awhile. It’s a cute town with lots of shops and cafes. We walked a couple miles up the main road and looked at some scenery which took up most of the morning. All the little kids in town had blonde curly hair and looked like little cherubs…cute though. We got some lunch, packed a bag for the night and decided to sit in a park across from the wharf before our boat ride. I fell asleep, Katy read books. Got my first semi-sunburn from napping and it wasn’t even sunny. Stupid hole in the ozone.

A small boat picked us up at quarter till 5 and took us over to the big boat. Funnily enough, the crew on the boat looked like grown up versions of the baby cherubs we had been seeing all day. Before one of them showed us to our room, he said that we could upgrade to our own room for $20 more each. We said no that’s ok…well, we ended up with our own room anyway! They tried to trick us but we didn’t fall for it:) The crew and everyone else on the boat with us was really nice. LOTS of Europeans. I started to feel sea sick when we first got on the boat but felt a lot better once we started moving. When we got out into the bay, they let us fish off the back of the boat to try to catch some fish to have with dinner. I caught a baby fish but that’s it. No one caught anything big enough to keep, which was too bad. Dinner was good otherwise though. After dinner we got to go night kayaking to try to see the phosphorescence light up in the water but the moon was too bright and nothing was lighting up:( Still really cool though. We went out in small groups away from the boat and the stars were really bright. Even though I was mad the giant moom ruined the phosphorescnece, it was really pretty how it reflected off the water. Got to bed shortly after that and just because we had our own room DID NOT mean it was comfortable. The mattress was so thin and uncomfortable and I was freezing all night so I didn’t get much sleep. Good thing I took a nap in the park I guess.

Yesterday morning we went over to a private island to snorkel, kayak, and hang out at the beach. The snorkeling wasn’t great…I think the water was murky from the rain they’ve been having. All I saw was a lame starfish on a rock. Kayaking was a lot more fun because you could enjoy all the awesome scenery and the water was really still because we were so far into the bay. After we were done at the beach, we started back to Paihia. On the way back, one of the cherubs cracked open some sea urchins for us to try. They were pretty good but would have been better with Tabasco or something.

Once we got back to Paihia, Katy and I went and fetched our van so we could move on to the next town. We were working our way up to Doubtless Bay where there are supposed to be a lot of pretty beaches. But since we still hadn't set up our “bed” in our car, we stopped at a place called The Warehouse which is kind of like Kmart and got blankets, sheets and some other stuff we needed but hadn't been able to find so far. After that we drove about an hour to a little town in Doubtless Bay called Manganui. We stayed at a little hotel there last night and got some good fish and chips next door. I always get half oysters, half fish because the oysters are so dang good here.

This morning we got breakfast at a cafe next door to the hotel. Everywhere you go has this great granola stuff with fruit and yogurt on it...so good. At this place, when I asked for coffee, the girl said they didn't have regular coffee but she said a Long Black or a Flat White would be the closest options...umm, what?? I didn't feel like I was quite ready for a Long Black yet, (sounded intimidating) so I went with the Flat White and it was SO good. Why is coffee everywhere else in the world so much better than in the US? I really don't understand.

After breakfast, we went up north a little bit to Cooper's Beach and a camp ground we had read about that was in the town called Whatuwhiwhi. They have laundry and really nice ammenities so we got to wash all of our bed stuff and finally clean out our disgusting car. It's SO much better...I'm actually more than willing to sleep in it now. There's a cat that lives on the campground and decided to take a nap in our car while we were cleaning it out. We named him TimTam.

Having never been camping before (and kind of scared of it), I was really impressed by this place. It's overlooking the beach with mountains behind it, and the kitchen and bathrooms are cleaner than any hostel we've stayed at so far. AND there's a playground with a trampoline. Katy and I played on it this afternoon. We tried to go down to the beach for a little bit but it was so windy that the sand was blowing on us and it hurt. But today was the first day I brought out my giant sun hat. I have a feeling I'm going to be wearing it even more than I expected cause the sun is so incredibly intense. Today I had to hold it on my head the whole time because it was so windy. It blew off once and I had to go chase it.

We went back into town to get some stuff to make our own dinner. We got some vegtables and fish to grill. Everything turned out REALLY good...the fish is amazing here. It was something called Blue Nose...no idea what type of fish it is but I don't really care, it's yummy. Hung out and played cards the rest of the night and drank this really good beer we discovered...talked to a Canadian guy...that's about it.

Tomorrow we'll probably hang around this area and look for some less windy beaches. The next day we're taking a tour up to Ninety Mile beach and going dune surfing...let you know how that turns out, ha.

Sorry these posts haven't exactly been literary masterpeices so far. I'm usually just trying to hurry up and recap the day before either the computer battery dies or I have to move on to the next place. I'll be able to get more creative once I have more time, hopefully.